I was saddened and angered by your article on the plight of Mount Vernon hospital (Crumbling and out-of-date NHS hospital ‘putting patients at risk’, 4 October). The report commissioned by the NHS East of England region seems to ignore positive aspects of the hospital’s work and certainly does not reflect my experience as a patient.
The lack of acute support services and the state of the wards etc needs to be set in a broader context. Over the past decades Mount Vernon, like all NHS hospitals, has had to cope with many changes to the NHS resulting from zigzagging government policies, including cuts to funding, and their impact on staffing and capital expenditure.
I was treated at the Mount Vernon cancer centre recently so I am aware of its depleted physical state. Despite this the treatment and care was excellent. I first attended the hospital during diagnosis, because Mount Vernon is the only hospital in the wider area able to offer PET scans, and later for radiotherapy.
I was always seen promptly by radiographers and specialist Macmillan nurses, and at my consultant’s clinic. All staff were helpful, well-informed and caring. They explained the procedures and possible side-effects and answered questions. The cancer centre also has additional, free support facilities, largely funded through donations and charities.
The article adjacent to the one on Mount Vernon reports on a significant fall in the death rate from breast cancer. My wife is probably included in this statistic. She was treated successfully at Mount Vernon two years ago and had a similar experience.
This hospital is not included in the £2.7bn pledged by the prime minister. Mount Vernon is in a constituency where the incumbent Conservative MP has enjoyed a comfortable majority since 2010. I wonder whether the hospital might have fared better had it been located in a marginal constituency.
Basil Bara
Kenton, London
• As a long-term patient at the Mount Vernon cancer hospital, I was shocked by the recent brutal report on this hospital’s performance. Core services at this hospital such as oncology, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and diagnostic scanning are delivered in a very professional and caring way.
This reflects high levels of staff dedication at all levels in spite of problems with underinvestment and staff shortages which are widespread throughout the NHS.
Perhaps some acute care services would now be better relocated away from Mount Vernon, but not too far away. All services need to be kept within range of the 2 million people in Mount Vernon’s catchment area, accompanied by substantial new investment in equipment, IT systems and buildings.
Staff recruitment and retention will remain difficult at Mount Vernon as elsewhere, partly due to so many foreign-born doctors and nurses being made to feel unwelcome in the UK in recent years. There are better ways to deal with this problem than threatening to close down valued medical facilities.
Geoff Mason
St Albans, Hertfordshire
• The review of Mount Vernon Cancer Centre identified years of neglect requiring a change of ownership away from East and North Herts NHS Trust. The review also repeatedly commented on the excellent care delivered by clinical staff and the high patient satisfaction scores we receive despite the low level of staffing and poor infrastructure provided to us. As consultants we wish to reassure our patients and their families that we will continue to work to deliver the highest standards of care and look forward to a brighter future under new management, whoever they may be.
Dr Roberto Alonzi, Dr Georgios Antoniou, Dr Nicola Anyamene, Dr Neel Bhuva, Dr Kevin Chiu, Dr Arshi Denton, Dr Jeanette Dickson, Dr Rob Glynne-Jones, Dr Andrew Gogbashian, Dr Amy Guppy, Prof Marcia Hall, Dr Mark Harrison, Prof Peter Hoskin, Dr Robert Hughes, Dr Amish Lakhani, Dr Catherine Lemon, Dr Alan Makepeace, Dr Andreas Makris, Dr Suzannah Mawdsley, Prof David Miles, Dr Paul Mulholland, Dr Paul Nathan, Dr Peter Ostler, Prof Anwar Padhani, Dr Andreas Polychronis, Dr Nihal Shah, Dr Anand Sharma, Dr Heather Shaw, Dr Subhadip Ghosh-Ray, Dr Stephanie, Dr Narottam, Dr Hannah Tharmalingam, Dr Ignacio Vazquez, Dr Anup Vinayan, Dr Charlotte Westbury
